80Th Legislative Session

The 80th Legislature, Regular Session Cumulative End of Session Report The Texas A&M University System Office of Governmental Relations July 2007 Table of Contents Overview of the 80th Regular Session......................................1 Overview of the State Budget Overview ............................................................................................... 9 Higher Education Funding ................................................................... 13 General Academics Institutions.......................................................... 14 Texas A&M System Research & Service Agencies .......................... 19 Health Related Institutions................................................................. 21 Employee Benefits................................................................................ 25 Riders: Article III Special Provisions ................................................ 27 Riders: Article IX General Provisions ............................................... 30 Bill Facts .............................................................................................. 33 TAMUS Institution-Specific Legislation ...................................... 34 Overview of Key Higher Education Legislation......................... 44 Other Bills of Interest That Passed............................................... 82 Bills of Interest Not Passing ........................................................... 87 Bill Analysis Task Force Members............................................... 128 Governmental Relations Team and Assignments ...................... 129 Overview of the 80th Regular Session “A session like no other”: this has become a hallway comment about the Regular Session of the 80th Legislature. While it is true that each session assumes its own character as the old Members exit and the new ones are sworn in, and of course each has its own share of hot issues; yet, the 80th Session does stand out from the ordinary in many ways. The 80th Session took an unusual turn even before it opened, when in November a public challenge was mounted against a sitting Speaker of the House, the first time in over 40 years this had occurred. Speaker Tom Craddick ultimately held on to the Speaker’s gavel for a third term in what was regarded as a “close vote”. Nevertheless, the dissatisfaction that led to the Speaker challenge remained a constant undertone throughout the Session. For example, the House voted to override the Speaker’s ruling on a procedural matter, a rarity that longtime observers could not recall happening. This small “victory” seemed to embolden the insurgents, for next came a controversy over the routine setting of bills for the Local and Consent Calendar. Some Members suggested that the L & C Calendar appeared to be “short” of bills by Members who were not “on the Speaker’s team”. The L & C calendar being such an important vehicle for all Members (and since under House Rules it only takes one Member to knock a bill off the L & C Calendar), this issue became a galvanizing point even for some of the Speaker’s loyalists, resulting in intermittent turmoil and interruption of the Calendar in the closing days of the session. By ‘Sine Die’, five Members had announced their candidacy for Speaker in the 81st Session, the Parliamentarian and her assistant had resigned and been replaced by two former House members, both longtime allies of the Speaker. Armed with the Rules interpretations of his new Parliamentarians, the Speaker asserted, and prevailed, that he alone held the absolute power to determine when and if to recognize a Member to speak on the House floor. Nonetheless, while tensions and emotions ran high throughout the closing week-end of the Session, most of the important legislation was acted upon by ‘sine die’. The Senate was not without its own contretemps as well. Lt. Governor Dewhurst’s press to enact Jessica’s Law, a bill requiring stricter punishment of repeat child sex offenders, and his push for a vote to take up and consider a Voters’ Identification bill both proved divisive in the usually collegial Senate. Resistance from prosecutors and victim’s rights groups made negotiations on Jessica’s Law quite contentious, though ultimately a resolution was reached and Jesssica’s Law was passed overwhelmingly. The Voter ID legislation died without a vote in the Senate, but not without rousing such acrimony that a bipartisan delegation of Senators was dispatched to meet with the Lt. Governor over his handling of it. At the start of the session Governor Perry issued an unprecedented Executive Order mandating that all girls entering the sixth grade receive the Human Papillomavirus vaccination. During his State of the State Address, the Governor recommended sale of the State Lottery to private interests and raised a few other bold initiatives. Comptroller Combs provided the Legislature the good news that the state would have an estimated $14 billion in new revenue over FY 2006-2007. Legislative leaders, holding to a conservative path in order to pay for the property tax reductions approved in the 3rd Called Session of the 79th Legislature in spring 2006 and still have some of the revenue available for the 2009 session, nevertheless had to work their way through much consternation, debate and competing Page 1 TAMUS Office of Governmental Relations proposals about how much of the estimated surplus should be spent, refunded or saved. In the context of leadership style issues and the unprecedented surplus, the House and Senate had difficulty finding consensus. The Governor’s insistence on formatting some of higher education’s funding so that it would be exposed to his line item veto stalled the entire appropriations bill in the closing days of the Session. Then, his veto of 55 pieces of legislation, some deemed surprising and controversial, ensured that the 80th Regular Session would not go down as a quiet, business-as- usual session. Overview of Issues This overview is furnished to summarize and provide a record of some of the major issues of 80th Regular Session; special attention is given to issues of importance to The Texas A&M University System and its members. Given the statewide reach of programs, research, and services delivered by the System and its members, the range of legislative issues affecting the System and its institutions is broad. In addition, some issues which were not resolved this session will be noted since they remain priorities to constituencies, legislators or leaders and are therefore likely to be encountered as issues in the future. Higher Education Issues In addition to the undivided attention always devoted to the appropriations bill, several higher education policy issues were considered by the 80th Legislature. A brief overview of some key legislation is provided below; further details relating to individual bills may be found within the body of this report. Top 10%: Adopted in 1997, Texas’ “Top 10%” law has been a hotly debated provision in recent sessions. The law provides automatic admission to any public university in Texas to any high school students who graduate in the top 10 percent of their class. For this the third session proposals have been offered to relax its provisions so that universities could use multiple factors, in addition to high school rank, in determining the composition of their prospective freshmen classes. Again this session over 15 bills, including HB 1186 by Representative Geanie Morrison, HB 78 by Representative Dan Branch, and SB 101 by Senator Florence Shapiro, were filed to adjust the status quo in some form. SB 101, as amended, became the primary vehicle for change and would have allowed a university to opt into a program requiring 50 percent of its freshman class to be accepted strictly on the class rank of Texas High School students. An additional 10 percent of its freshman class would be chosen from the pool of top 10 percent students based on a variety of factors. Negotiated components of the bill would have required additional financial aid for top 10 percent students, a sunset of the new option in six years, and a guarantee that any students not granted admission to their first choice institution within a university system would be automatically admitted to their second choice university within that same system. The closely negotiated agreement allowed a bill modifying the Top 10% Law to pass the Senate for the first time. In the House, the bill was passed as amended, thus requiring a conference committee to resolve differences between the two chambers. On the last evening of the session for the legislature to take action, the conference committee report passed the Senate by a vote of 28-2 but was rejected by the House 66-75, with a coalition of inner city and rural members combining to defeat the bill. While modification of the Top 10% rule remains a priority for some institutions, in the aftermath of this session’s inaction, it is unclear what Page 2 TAMUS Office of Governmental Relations changes will be acceptable to both chambers. Nevertheless, all indications are that this is likely to remain an issue yet again for the 81st Legislative Session. Tuition Deregulation: Efforts in the 79th Legislative Session to set limits on university Boards of Regents to set tuition, specifically in the Senate, created expectations that such efforts would be intensified this session. More than twenty legislative bills were filed dealing with the issue of tuition deregulation. Ultimately, none was successful and the discretion to

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